Symbolism Of Pearl In Scarlet Letter

In A Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne uses Pearl just as much a symbol as she is a character. She represents the price of sin and the possibility for redemption. Hester names her daughter Pearl, “as being a great price- purchased with all she had- her mother’s only treasure!” (Hawthorne 6). Hester loves pearl unconditionally because pearl had to suffer so much to get her, not just in childbirth, but also because she is an outcast. Pearl is not like all the other kids and she seems to always get ignored by them. When they do come up to her, she throws stones at them while screaming like, “a witch’s anathemas in some unknown tongue” (Hawthorne 6).Her personality is described as intelligent, imaginative, inquisitive, determined, and even obstinate
at times. She is a mixture of strong moods, given to uncontrolled laughter at one moment and sullen silence the next, with a fierce temper and a capacity for the "bitterest hatred that can be supposed to rankle in a childish bosom"(Hawthorne 65). As a symbol, Pearl functions first as a reminder of Hester's passion. Hester realizes this in the first scaffold scene when she resists the temptation to hold Pearl in front of the scarlet A, "wisely judging that one token of her shame would but poorly serve to hide another"(Hawthorne 37). As Pearl grows into a lovely, bright-spirited child, Hester feels that her daughter's strange behavior is somehow associated with Pearl's circumstances at birth. Pearl is also a constant reminder of Hester’s sin of adultery. Pearl keeps Hester aware that there is not an escape from her sin. Even at a young age,